[Romans Study 4-2]
The Righteous Will Live By Faith [Romans 1:8-17]
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. 9 God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. 11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.
The Gospel, The Righteousness Of God
”For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”” (1:17) – Oh! What a mighty statement, what a precious gem it is!
In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Now, this word ‘revealed’ is a very important one; it is one of the basic, and in a sense, one of the most important words of the Christian faith. There is no Christianity apart from revelation.
The gospel is not something that invites us to join in a great search or a great quest. It is an announcement, a proclamation. It is a revelation, an unfolding, an unveiling of something. And the Apostle says the unveiling of the righteousness of God is made manifest, plain and clear in the gospel.
The gospel is the ‘content’ of the revelation. And what is this content? It is the ‘righteousness of God’. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s way of righteousness, though this was not wholly unprecedented. He quotes from Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by his faith.”
“”For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”” The key to understanding Paul’s whole argument, not just in this Epistle but also in his other epistles, is understanding this very verse. It is, in a sense, a key to the Christian faith and the Christian message. And we cannot deal with this without reminding ourselves that only when Martin Luther came to understand this verse did he truly become a Christian. It was the understanding of this phrase that started the Protestant Reformation. So as a qualifier, we could say that if we as Protestants do not truly understand the 17th verse of this 1st chapter of this Epistle, we are unworthy of the name of Protestant. Without understanding this verse, perhaps it is doubtful whether we are Christian at all. There is no more vital verse in the whole of Scripture than this 17th verse.
Righteousness, the ever recurring word in this Epistle, has a meaning much broader than what we commonly ascribe to it. If we do not comprehend the meaning of the righteousness of God, we will be forever in misery, just as Luther experienced agony of soul while he misinterpreted its meaning. Listen to his own words: ‘I labored diligently and anxiously as to how to understand Paul’s word in Romans 1:17, where he says that “the righteousness of God is revealed” in the gospel. I sought long and knocked anxiously, for the expression “the righteousness of God” blocked the way’. Is the failure to capture the meaning of ‘the righteousness of God’ blocking the way to our salvation as well? Luther went further and said: ‘As often as I read that declaration I wished always that God had not made the gospel known.
But what Paul says here is that he rejoices in the gospel because God’s righteousness for man has been revealed. God’s righteousness is not something that blocks the way to salvation but it is the way to liberate us and the only way to give us salvation. It is neither we nor our efforts that lead us to this righteousness. When Paul says ‘For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed,’ this righteousness is what God has prepared, and gives us through Christ; God brings us to the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel, Justification By Faith
The ultimate end and objective of the Christian gospel is to answer the question that was proposed by Job centuries ago: ‘How shall a man be just with God? That is what it comes down to. The purpose of the gospel is to make us righteous in the eyes of God, to make us acceptable before God, to enable us to stand in the presence of God. This is the central purpose of the gospel. Do I know God? Does my salvation bring me into the presence of God? That is the object of the Christian salvation. It is intensely concerned about righteousness.
How can a man be just with God? If we keep the law, can we be called righteous before God? The more we know of the law and try to abide by the law, the more we will be condemned by the curse of the law. The law cannot lead us to righteousness. This is a human problem that we cannot ever resolve with our abilities.
What is revealed in the gospel, he says, is God’s way of solving that problem. And God’s way of solving it is that God Himself provides us with the very righteousness that He demands. And that is the gospel! The gospel tells us of a righteousness from God, a righteousness provided by God, in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now if God justifies the sinner, it does not mean that He finds reasons to prove that the sinner was right—far from it. It does not mean that, at of this point, He even makes the sinner a good man. What it does mean is that God treats the sinner as if he had not been a sinner at all. Instead of treating the sinner as a criminal to be obliterated, God treats him as a child to be loved. That is what justification means. It means He looks on us not as law-breakers to be punished, but as men and women only to be loved. That is very essence of the gospel.
The Gospel, Salvation
Listen to Paul’s confession soon after he realized the essence of the gospel: ‘Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of m1y own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:5-9)
The perfectly legalistic Paul completely and totally transformed and became a preacher of the gospel of God – not from his own righteousness, but after coming to know that the way of salvation is only through the righteousness of God. This righteousness comes through the faith of Christ. This refers not to the righteousness of God as an attribute, but of righteousness that is of or from God that is given to us by faith –the righteousness of Christ that we have by faith.
Rome was the greatest city of the era, just as New York or London today form world metropolises. Paul is saying that he, the Jewish itinerant preacher, would conquer Rome for Christ. But by what means? By the message of a Galilean who was executed as a criminal! In the face of the wisdom and might of Rome, by the message of the “foolishness of the Cross”, this glorification of the powerless one! And this message is none other than the gospel.
The gospel is the announcement of God’s way of salvation–that is what has been revealed – that this righteousness that God Himself gives to us is the way whereby we are made righteous in the presence of God. That is salvation. That is the heart of salvation. That is the center of salvation. Not your feeling or mine, or this and that experience, but this tremendous thing that God Himself does and gives to us freely for nothing, without money and without price.
Republished with permission from Dr. Christy Tran, the author of “The Epistle to the Romans: Paul’s Love Letter from God.”
